Fast Track. Q & A.

Richard Price, who has been called "the best screenwriter...

July 25, 1993|By Cheryl Lavin.

Richard Price, who has been called "the best screenwriter in America," has collected his original scripts for "The Color of Money," "Sea of Love" and "Night and the City" in "Three Screenplays" (Houghton Mifflin).

Q: Are the screenplays in the book the same as the shooting scripts?

A: Only the one for "The Color of Money." The other two were changed substantially. Scripts are rewritten to make them more pleasing to the audience so more people will see the film and be happy. Movies are very expensive, and producers don't want to indulge some writer's dark vision and lose millions of dollars.

Q: How do actors influence a script?

A: I had written more than half the script of "The Color of Money," a sequel to "The Hustler," before Paul Newman saw it. He didn't like his character. It was much too dark for him. He likes to play rogues, not villains, so I had to start from scratch. He owns the character, legally and creatively.

Q: How did "Sea of Love" change?

A: It was hammered into a thriller. My script was more of a slice-of-life police story. But the studio and the producers wanted to capitalize on something that people are familiar with, a "did she or didn't she?" plot twist. They got a script that suited their needs, and the movie made its money.

Q: How did the ending of "Night and the City" change?

A: It was given a strange, upbeat ending that the critics hated. I had the main character die, but no studio would allow the main character to die, unless he was Malcolm X or JFK.

Q: Do your stories have any common threads?

A: I write about New York people, hustlers. I live in New York. It's all around me. You see and hear stuff. You can't help it.

Q: We always hear that the writer is low man on the totem pole in Hollywood. Is that true?

A: The makeup person may be lower. But the medium isn't about writing, it's about pictures.